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Jungle has become the Kalista/Azir/Tahm Kench of roles

Naalith·12/13/2019, 9:00:32 AM·6 votes·2,512 views

I never thought we would get to a point where the act of playing a role would feel as bad as playing one of the ultra nerfed due of pro play champions. Back when cool characters like Kalista, Azir, Rek'sai (before her mini rework with the new R) were getting slapped to the depths of the earth due to pro play, I was always sad I couldn't play these incredibly unique champions anymore but as a person with no mains I just moved on to other champions. However, as someone who has mained jungle in ranked and played it like 30% of the time in normals, this role now feels like complete ass. I know people will come out and say it's not the same thing as ultra nerfed due to pro champions because every team has a jungler so by definition their winrate is 50/50 (or whatever, iron players may be fans of the old double top), but the feel is what I'm trying to get across. Some of the issues that have built up over the years include but are not limited to:

-Initial scuttle crab rework leading to only heavy duelist champions being viable, namely Lee Sin, Xin Zhao, and Camille at the time. -Multiple XP nerfs which leads to farming junglers actually being behind on levels to their heavy gank counterparts, due to stealing XP from lanes being more viable than farming. -Continuous increase in the importance of epic camps leading to even high need to play duelists and also increasing mental toll by increased teammate harassment. -Tank junglers being so overbearing in pro play means that, besides Nunu, they are basically outright deleted which further cuts down the roster.

We're at the point now that playing this role is horrible. Your teammates flame you more than ever because technically epic camps are even more important, yet you yourself are basically a bottom laner XP wise and have no autonomy over the game. The fantasy of jungle was to wander around the map killing camps and exerting pressure on lanes at specific times to tip the odds of the game in your favor, sometimes grabbing the epic camps if you felt it was safe. The new identity of jungle is constantly gank over and over with no farming, go for riskier and riskier objective grabs to get your team to shut the fuck up, and do it while having less XP and less gold to feel like an offcarry of sorts. We get that you like Lee Sin Riot, but please make it so we can play literally anyone else without feeling like our team is at a disadvantage. There are several solutions Riot can implement:

-Reduce the power of dragon souls. Individual dragon buffs are actually far weaker this season and I feel like if the collection bonus wasn't so nuts the flame would die down a bit. -Put more XP and gold back into camps. I would honestly love the scuttle changes to be fully reverted but I know there is no hope of that. Scuttle used to be a vision and movement buff strategically placed near major objectives and gave very little XP. Now it's probably better to lose a buff camp than a scuttle. -Do individual buffs to champions designed in a way to let OP pro champions be viable in normals. -Quit shitting on this role because it is the highest impact role in high level play. It isn't a champion you can neuter and leave in the gutter for years, it's an experience required to be had by 2 people in every single game.

2 Comments

BigFBear12/13/2019, 9:35:10 AM4 votes

Erm.... if you don't farm in this meta you fall 6 lvl behind enemy jungler. Saying "only ganking and not farming wins" is complete BS. That was the case in S9. Farming is more important since 9.23. That's why strong early game junglers with fast clearspeed are so good right now. Slow clear junglers are giga garbage now.

Drake's need to become harder to kill again. It's a joke that they are so weak you can solo them in seconds but give such a strong buff (Soul). And jungle needs some adjustments so that junglers with slow clear are viable too.

Thefrostyviking12/13/2019, 4:23:50 PM3 votes

Other guy wrote it already but indeed, if you do not farm properly then as a jungler you´re completely, utterly, screwed since you´ll be down 3-4 levels of EXP compared to the toplaners in no time at all.

At which point you´ll just be out of the game with no real ability to impact it much since anything will most likely oneshot you with EXP lead.

No what jungle is now is demanding in terms of perfection, you have to clear camps quickly, have the ability to fight for scuttlers, maintain dragon control (it´s too damn important) and also carefully gauge your chances at having a 100% chance of succeeding a gank.

No more bullshit about ganking for pressure, you either succeed the gank and kill the enemy or chances are you have failed no questions asked since the enemy jungler is now stealing your camps and will start invading with the lead gained from that.

3 camps represent 300 gold, if you lose more than this its likely you´ll be unable to fight the enemy jungler, at which point you´ll also be done.

So you have to be good at clearing fast, good at making rapid judgement about your chances and you have to be good at dueling or making it as a jungler will be exceedingly difficult.